1. Embattled King County Democrats chair Bailey Stober, who has refused to step down after an internal investigation concluded he sexually harassed and bullied his sole employee, Natalia Koss Vallejo, before firing her last month, has called a special meeting of the group’s executive board for March 19 to discuss what to do now that efforts to recruit a five-person panel to do a new investigation into Stober’s conduct as chair have failed. Stober is also accused of misappropriating the organization’s funds; among other things, he reportedly spent $14,000 more on campaign contributions than was allocated in last year’s budget.

At a meeting late last month, the King County Democrats’ executive board decided that an initial investigation by the group’s three vice-chairs was inadequate, and decided to let Stober himself appoint two of the members of a five-member panel to investigate the charges against him. The board also decided to expand the investigation to include an investigation of the original investigation, as well as an investigation into who “leaked” information about the complaints to the media, including me. Two of the five members would be appointed by the group’s vice chairs, and the fifth would be approved jointly by Stober and the vice-chairs, giving Stober himself effective control over the makeup of half the group investigating him for workplace misconduct.

Over the course of the investigation, two of the group’s three vice chairs have resigned, and the third, Orchideh Raisdanai, has apparently been unable to find anyone who will serve on the panel. Several potential members reportedly declined because they did not want to lend credibility to the process.

In an email to the executive board, Stober quoted from a note sent by the King County Democrats’ Democratic National Committee representative David McDonald—a Stober ally who oversaw the closed-door executive board meeting that led to the decision to form a new five-member panel—outlining the purpose of the meeting. (Stober and one of his allies, state committeeman Jon Culver, have begun monitoring and controlling the flow of emails to and from the general executive board address, according to group members who have tried to email the board, so that board members don’t see every email sent to their address and outgoing messages are reportedly monitored and approved by Stober or Culver.) “The motion adopted at the February 27 meeting did not specify a plan B in the event that the requested Committee could not be constituted in the time frame specified,” McDonald wrote. “Accordingly, the Chair was requested to call a special meeting of the Executive Board for the purpose of adopting a plan B procedure or taking other appropriate action in light of the events.” What that “Plan B procedure” will be remains unclear.

Tim Farrell, who chairs the Pierce County Democrats, will oversee the meeting. Last year, the Pierce County Democrats were fined $22,600 for breaking campaign-finance laws by repeatedly failing to properly report donations and spending over the course of three years. The King County Democrats are currently negotiating their own fine over similar charges, and Stober is now the subject of two new, separate complaints charging that he and other party officers concealed the group’s dire financial situation from the public, failed to report pledges and expenditures, and failed to file other reports properly and promptly.

On Wednesday, members of the 34th District Democrats who want Stober to step down will propose a resolution calling on Stober to resign. Several other Democratic groups across King County, including the 43rd, 11th, 45th, and 36th Legislative District Dems, have passed or are considering resolutions withholding funds from the King County Democrats until Stober steps down, but the 34th has not yet done so. The group is chaired by David Ginsberg, a stalwart Stober supporter who told the Seattle Times that he didn’t believe Stober had harassed Koss Vallejo because they had socialized and seemed “chummy” before Stober fired her. Meanwhile, another group that has been silent so far is the 37th District Democrats; their chair, Alec Stephens, evocatively compared the investigation into Stober to a lynching at last month’s meeting.

An open letter calling on Stober to resign now has nearly 200 signatures from Democratic leaders, precinct committee officers, and elected officials.

2. The Seattle Ethics and Elections commission will release its first postelection report on the Democracy Voucher program today, featuring information about which voters took advantage of the opportunity to allocate public funds to which candidates, and how; how much money the program cost; and how (and when) Seattle residents spent their vouchers.

Some highlights from the SEEC’s report:

• Not surprisingly, most people allocated their vouchers—a total of $100 per registered voter, divided into four $25 increments—just before the primary and/or general elections. In July, prior to the August 1, 2017 primary election, the city received 11,548 vouchers; in October, leading up to the November 7 general election, voters returned 14,288 vouchers to the city. However, quite a few vouchers were returned well before the May 19 deadline for candidates to declare they were running—11,530 vouchers came in between January, when vouchers landed in mailboxes, and April, suggesting that candidates who filed early (like unsuccessful Position 8 candidate Jon Grant) had some success locking down voucher contributions before other candidates had a chance to get in their races. Voters returned a total of just over 72,000 vouchers in all.

• About one in five vouchers came in to the city directly from the campaigns, which solicited voucher contributions from voters; the rest came in through the mail (78 percent) or were emailed or delivered to the ethics board by hand.

• The overwhelming majority—76 percent—of people who returned their vouchers to the city gave them to just one candidate, rather than distributing the four $25 vouchers to different candidates.

• The requirement that candidates secure at least 400 signatures and 400 contributions of $10 or more appears to have been a significant barrier to voucher program participation. Only six candidates ultimately qualified for public funding with vouchers, and one, Hisam Goeuli, has pointed out that it took him so long to collect the required signatures—27 weeks—that by the time he had access to voucher funding, it was too late in the campaign for him to benefit from it. However, the other five candidates who qualified all appeared on the general election ballot, most of them after making it through the August primary.

• In 2017, the voucher program came in about $787,000 under its $3 million budget; under the initiative that authorized the program, unused funds are reserved for spending in future years.

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